Recapping

So I was planning on posting something after Thursday but then the weekend hit and I kept finding other things to do. It didn’t help that this was the kickoff of the football season and I’m in a fantasy league so you kind of have to pay attention.

We had the remnants of a hurricane sitting over us most of the weekend. I never knew the clouds could contain so much water and this was just the remnants. There is a big nasty hurricane approaching the east coast and threatening to drop 20+ inches of rain. I can’t even imagine what that would be like.

Rain is always a problem because one of my dogs insists on going to a park. He will intentionally hold as long as possible hoping to get his trip. Not really sure why going in the park is superior to going in the yard but, then again, I don’t speak dog. If I did, I could tell him that its raining and we aren’t going anywhere. Instead, to keep him from being uncomfortable all day, I had to go out a few times in the rain just to let him do his thing. Yeah, we know who’s trained who.

So let’s set the Wayback Machine to last Thursday. OwnerGuy was not going to be on the lesson but he gave us a challenge to get through the Rumba, Cha-Cha and Mambo. If we got stuck, the point was to write down where we got stuck so he could fix it but he really wanted us to get through those three dances. He may be getting tired of me stopping when something doesn’t “feel” right and wanting me to keep pushing through because we’ve struggled to get through two dances on most lessons.

And maybe I just needed that challenge because we basically got through all three with time to spare. Even looped them a few times so we could see how that goes. There are still rough patches but I’m am getting happier with how they move. We’ve got two months until we debut at Showcase so there is still time to polish. JoNY wants to add some style to the Mambo since we’ve been so focused on the choreography that we haven’t added a lot of touches to make it more Mamobish.

We did also set up some additional lessons on Tuesdays. Not tonight but when he schedule frees up in a couple of weeks.

Not sure what we are working on tonight but it will probably include Viennese Waltz since we agreed to do that at the next open house.

As usual, today was my workout with the trainer who wants to kill me. Today, we determined that I’m not really working my quads enough or that they are super tight. He had what seemed like a simple exercise which was to just sit on the edge of a bench (high enough so my feet weren’t flat on the ground) and then raise up a leg and point the toe backwards. Initially, he then wanted me to lift the leg and hold it for a few seconds. It seems like it should be easy but my legs were freaking on fire. He ended up just having me extend the leg and hold it and that was still not easy.

Both trainers have said they are trying to work around my arthritic knees so they keep pushing to find ways to work the legs. I’m not arguing with them because it is clear that significant work is needed.

He also had me do this weird row where I was in some kind of a plank like position so my feet were on the ground but my hands were propped against the side of a bench. Then, I had to take one arm and do these rows with a kettle bell. Well I clearly was not ready for the force of the kettle bell trying to pull me over or whatever it was because I was fighting for balance the entire time. This is one of those places where I always feel like they are judging me just a bit but I try to remember that the point of a trainer is to push you because that’s how you see improvement and growth. And maybe it means that he’s seen enough improvement that there is a need to change and kick it up a bit.

As always, he finished with a plank. I thought I was free because he said we were done but then he looked at the clock and said “We’ve got time for a plank” because there’s always time for a freaking plank. I don’t think he even monitored the clock this time because I’m holding it and waiting for the ten second countdown that never came. Instead, we just reached a point where my body said “ENOUGH” and I just couldn’t hold it anymore.